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Ryan S
Ryan S
Retired Sonos Staff
January 22, 2020

End of Software Support - Clarifications

End of Software Support - Clarifications

We announced yesterday that some of our oldest Sonos products will be moving into a legacy mode in May of 2020. Our commitment is to support products with regular software updates for a minimum of five years after we stop selling them, and we have a track record of supporting products far longer. 

Here is some public information we’ve shared, gathered into one place to respond to some of your questions in one easy thread, so that people can find the correct information easily.

Beginning in May, software updates and new features from Sonos will only be delivered to systems with only modern products.

After May, systems that include legacy products will continue to work as before - but they will no longer receive software updates or new features. 

Sonos will work to maintain the existing experience and conduct bug fixes, but our efforts will ultimately be limited by the lack of memory and processing power of these legacy products.

We don’t expect any immediate impact to your experience, but access to services and overall functionality will eventually be disrupted, particularly as partners evolve their own services and features. 

 

Customers with both legacy and modern products have time to decide what option is best for them. You can continue to use your whole system in legacy mode - in this case, it will stop receiving updates and new features. 

You will also be able to separate your legacy products from your modern products, so that the modern products can still receive updates and new features, and legacy products can still be used separately. We’ll have more information on how to do this in May when you can take that action.

Another option available to all customers with legacy products is to take advantage of the Trade Up program, which allows you to upgrade older Sonos products to modern ones with a 30% discount. Trade Up will be open to customers at any time should they decide to upgrade. 

We recognize this is new for Sonos owners, just as it is for Sonos. We are committed to help you by making options available to you to support the best decision for your home.
 

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate with asking.

Update 2/22: A message from our CEO

We heard you. We did not get this right from the start. My apologies for that and I wanted to personally assure you of the path forward:

First, rest assured that come May, when we end new software updates for our legacy products, they will continue to work as they do today. We are not bricking them, we are not forcing them into obsolescence, and we are not taking anything away. Many of you have invested heavily in your Sonos systems, and we intend to honor that investment for as long as possible. While legacy Sonos products won’t get new software features, we pledge to keep them updated with bug fixes and security patches for as long as possible. If we run into something core to the experience that can’t be addressed, we’ll work to offer an alternative solution and let you know about any changes you’ll see in your experience.

Secondly, we heard you on the issue of legacy products and modern products not being able to coexist in your home. We are working on a way to split your system so that modern products work together and get the latest features, while legacy products work together and remain in their current state. We’re finalizing details on this plan and will share more in the coming weeks.

While we have a lot of great products and features in the pipeline, we want our customers to upgrade to our latest and greatest products when they’re excited by what the new products offer, not because they feel forced to do so. That’s the intent of the trade up program we launched for our loyal customers.

Thank you for being a Sonos customer. Thank you for taking the time to give us your feedback. I hope that you’ll forgive our misstep, and let us earn back your trust. Without you, Sonos wouldn’t exist and we’ll work harder than ever to earn your loyalty every single day.

If you have any further questions please don’t hesitate to contact us.

 

Patrick Spence
CEO, Sonos

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    4256 replies

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    Flyingfish
    Lyricist I
    January 22, 2020

    Unbelievable.  Nice way to ruin your brand overnight.  My 1972 Sansui receiver plays perfectly 48 years later.  My 5 year old Sonos system that cost 10x will soon be obsolete and need replacement.  What a ripoff.

     

    In addition,  I play music stored on my iPhone regularly - I paid thousands of dollars for them on iTunes.  That is why I bought Sonos.  Now my older products will no longer do that.  And if I read this correctly, we can’t just buy one new play 5 gen 2 to solve the problem.  

     

    Sounds like I need a whole new system.  The 30 percent upgrade discount is offensive.

     

    Thanks for making the decision to buy a Bluetooth adapter for my quality older system an easy one. I may keep my existing system but rest assured I won’t ever buy another Sonos product and I will think hard about shorting your stock.

     

     

      anjrober
      Enthusiast II
      January 22, 2020

      Stock is dropping fast.  now down 2.26%.  

        dfgiles
        Lyricist II
        January 22, 2020

        What a seriously bonehead move Sonos 

        It’s not just angering your loyal - and previously vocally supportive - customer base, but also shooting your reputation - and future product sales - squarely in the foot in one ill-advised fell swoop.

        It’s clear you’re signaling that continuing to buy your products means we’ll just have to replace them the next time you decide to make a move like this? And why would anyone do that? 

        On a lighter note, there’s no doubt if you go through with this “planned obsolescence,” it’s going to make an outstanding MBA case study of exceptionally poor business decisions once business tanks and the company suffers. Suddenly a lot of other legendarily bad business decisions like the Edsel and New Coke will look so much better in comparison to your move. I just hate that like your customers, your workforce also has to suffer the consequences of this move.

        Sounds like the kind of move companies make when the people who built the company have been pushed out, and the new crowd wants a “quick hit” impact to boost their own careers and fortunes (hey, they won’t be in their jobs three years from now, right?).

        And unfortunately as others have pointed out, this makes other Wi-Fi based products look circumspect. Does it make me want to buy another Ring camera or a SimpliSafe alarm? Actually it makes me not want to. So your decision is likely to ripple far beyond Sonos.

        Like others I’m also heavily invested in Sonos products: PlayBar, 4 1s, 2 3s, 2 Subs, Beam, Connect, Boost (had to dump the Bridge because of a similar move), and the soon-to-be obsolete 5. Also like others if you continue down this path, not only will I never purchase another Sonos product, I will no longer recommend your system to others (as I have countless times in the past), and I will actively move away from your system ASAP. And BTW my now-deceased wife gave me that 5, so I’m actually a bit emotionally attached to it.

        BTW my 30+ year old B&W speakers and NAD electronics still sound awesome! Right now their source is a Connect feeding a Cambridge Audio DAC. But, hey, after this I looked into how I had that rigged: the volume control on the Cambridge works, the Wi-Fi DAC still works with Spotify and Tidal, and the system actually sounds better without the Connect. 

        Please reconsider.

         

          rossbate
          Lyricist I
          January 22, 2020

          So as you gave £100 when you stopped supporting the CR100 are you going to give £100 per legacy unit. I have 5 units that will become legacy and some of them only bought a few years ago. I have had Sonos since 2009, I certainly won't be buying anymore, couldn't even provide Dolby DTS on the Premium product PLAYBAR

            Razorhog
            Enthusiast II
            January 22, 2020

            Bumping the trade-in discount to 50% would go a LONG way towards making this acceptable. 

            My gut instinct is that Sonos has been digging themselves in a proverbial software hole for years by making all devices in a system run the same version.  I bet that some of the coders there have been saying this for years and were ignored by management.  Now the time has come that some products will be legacy soon but the software would have to be re-written completely in order to accommodate both legacy and newer products at the same time.  It’s a mess that’s been in the making for years, and there’s no easy solution.  My advice is to start hiring some top notch programmers to figure it out. 

              joeyag
              Lyricist I
              January 22, 2020

              To date i’ve almost been a sonos product evangelist, i’ve happily recommended it to family and friends, many of whom have gone on to buy sonos products. This announcement has made me do a complete u-turn; i’ll never buy another sonos product and will warn others from doing so. Really poor form. 

                Turbofont
                Lyricist I
                January 22, 2020

                An utter disgrace. Another lost customer. You want everyone to have to buy new products every 5 years? Comical. You don’t advertise that all products have a 5 year useful lifespan on your website but now suggest that’s normal. Does Patrick Spence realise the size of this mistake?

                  Tom F.
                  Lyricist III
                  January 22, 2020

                  Sonos it's like you’re not even listening. You locked the previous thread because you thought people didn't understand but the majority of us do understand. Its Sonos that doesn't understand.

                   

                  Very disappointed. You should be working on a path for people to keep their legacy products updated. Either by creating a new network connected legacy compute device to pick up the slack or making your software flexible enough to work with legacy and new hardware in the same cluster.

                  Invest in a solution, your customers want one.

                    PerfectSound
                    Lyricist III
                    January 22, 2020

                     

                     

                     

                     

                    I don't think you guys have until May. You need to get ahead of this now while people still care. In May people will have moved on. 

                    Absolutely right. The patient (Sonos) is heavily bleeding at the moment. If you want to stop it you really should do something. The only thing i've seen so far is that they have been trying to hide negative feedback. Not very good way to handle the situation. Action and apologies are needed. 

                    Btw.. Stock price is still going down. At the moment 14.46.. Both sides of head are bleeding. Customers and owners. 

                    Someone will have to find a new job soon. Can you feel the heat? 

                     

                      Sparkyboots
                      Enthusiast I
                      January 22, 2020

                      As other have mention cheap input devices into dumb hifi is the way forward I’m currently researching what I’ll be replacing Sonos with because I vow I will never buy another Sonos product, Friday I was buying a second lot of beam, sub and 2 ones for our other lounge as a 5.1 system similar to what we have in the main one now, it’ll be Yamaha I think so Sonos you’ve already cost yourselves oh and my new purchase I’ll today have covered the costs by shorting your stock #boycottsonos #sonosfail really paid off for me ha ha ha you guys can keep your 30% you’ve just paid me to go to a competitor and bad mouth you to anyone who’ll listen. I’ve heard ratner is astounded somebody has copied him 

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